"A lot of joke submissions can't be published because they don't make any sense, the child got a genuine joke completely wrong, or they're a bit too rude for kids... so I publish them here instead. I have not edited or made up any of these jokes." Bad Kids Jokes.
dw-11.03.16

"I say this, not because I'm a knee-jerk debunker who cannot accept the idea that a big unknown animal might exist in a big body of water, but because I am familiar with the evidence, such as it is, and find it wanting." Oh what the hell, let's talk about the Loch Ness Monster again.
jc-09.23.16

The 2015 Good Gift Games by Matthew Baldwin. I always look forward to Matt's annual run-down. One of his selections this year is Vlaada Chvatil's Codenames. This game has dominated my family get togethers for the last few months, it's a rare one that gets better the better you get at it.
jc-12.08.15

I was lucky to have been able to watch this insidious game play-tested. So, of course, I'm backing it. Secret Hitler.
jc-11.23.15

"Godtfred's younger brother Gerhardt, who had run Lego's wood toy division, was especially upset. He moved to nearby Kolding and began his own toy company, taking Lego's woodworking tools and the name Bilofix with him."
jc-09.23.15

"Something was very wrong. Here was this guy from nowhere, and he kept going around the board and hitting the bonus boxes every time. It was bedlam, I can tell you. And we couldn't stop this guy."jc-09.14.15

"The manner in which you hold the bottle can portray the perfume as glamorous or fun." So you know, how to be an excellent model. Thanks Ant.
jc-08.28.15

"Although he doesn't hold a grudge against the puny humans who disturb his silence with their 'skiing,' Mr. Yeti does like the way all those winter clothes keep their juicy insides warm. Mr. Yeti calls them Burritos on Sticks."
dw-08.26.15

Playing Clue last night, I wondered to myself how Cluedo, the (original) name for the game outside the U.S., was pronounced, which led me to this wonderful thread on boardgamegeek.com. Man, I love a good anorak forum flame war.
bb-07.14.15

"When Charles S. Roberts began selling his wargame Tactics from his apartment in Avalon, Maryland in 1954 he, out of financial necessity, replaced the traditional wood, plastic or metal game piece with something he could afford to manufacture - a printed sheet of die-cut cardboard squares." A great post from Jim at Codex 99 on information design in table-top war games, The Counter.
jc-07.14.15

"It once resulted in two arrests, another time cost a Hall of Famer a managing job, and it even happened in a World Series. With TV monitors in the clubhouses and professional coaches at the bases, the play was still pulled off twice in 2013." A terrific history of baseball's classic Hidden Ball Trick.kg-06.09.15

"Upload an image that you want to turn into a LEGO mural. We'll convert it to LEGO colors and LEGO brick units and tell you how many of each size and color you need."
dw-06.05.15

"It is one thing to say that a computer cannot appreciate the beauty of chess moves. It is quite another to use that inability to defeat it." The Departed Queen, by Dana Mackenzie. Via Mike Brown.
jc-05.27.15

"Bought this for some underage teens in the parking lot and they seemed to like it." Obvious Plant added some wine recommendations to the liquor store by his house.
jc-03.03.15

Sex at noon taxes. The Palindrome Game of the Enigma Codebreakers, by Mark Saltveit. "Few are aware that in their spare time, these same codebreakers held a competition that created several of the finest English-language palindromes..."
jc-02.26.15

"The Keyfleas live on a two-dimensional flatland. They travel as a flock, over key mountains and through aluminum valleys. They avoid touching letterforms, since they suspect that the symbols are of some evil origin. On occasion, a hostile tentacle invades the flatland and disturbs its inhabitants."
jc-02.03.15

If you want to experience the thrills and chills of someone walking around alone and occasionally stopping to silently solve puzzles, you're in luck! A TV series is being developed based on the game Myst.
sd-10.07.14

"I met Jacob in the middle of a field on a dusty summer day. I was in line at a small farmer's market when he bumped into me, and we locked eyes. 'Pardon,' he said in an accent I couldn't place, his straw hat quivering in the wind, 'I am just getting some water for my dog.' He motioned to a beautiful glazed clay jug in his hand. How could I be so lucky, I thought, to find a man with beautiful eyes, wheat-colored hair and perfectly distressed overalls, who preferred ceramic over plastic? The hipster boyfriend of my dreams."
dw-08.25.14

"If you're in a D&D campaign where you need to do any kind of farming, you have bigger problems than any magical item can fix. But this yoke allows characters to — when they put it on themselves — turn into an ox. Not a magical ox; a regular ox. Then you can till your field yourself!" The 20 most WTF magical items in D&D.
dw-06.26.14

More WC fun: "Danijel Pranjic is miffed because you didn't reply to his last 5 texts."
bb-06.25.14

"Saying it provides a pleasant and rewarding diversion from the quietness of living alone, local grandmother Rosemary Burke confirmed Wednesday that she has been enjoying a thriving correspondence with Mailer-Daemon."jc-01.30.14

The Console Living Room, tons and tons of classic console game emulated for modern browsers. Sadly, no Intellivision Hockey. Yet.
jc-01.15.14

"If the living rooms of the world are split between fans of Ridley Scott's taut horror Alien and enthusiasts of the action antics of James Cameron's Aliens, then the team at Creative Assembly are definitive Scott men." The superb trailer for the game Alien: Isolation and a bit about the decidedly lo-fi making of.
sd-01.08.14

"Once the countdown reached zero, at 5pm GMT on January 9, it showed 14 GPS coordinates around the world: locations in Warsaw, Paris, Seattle, Seoul, Arizona, California, New Orleans, Miami, Hawaii and Sydney. Sat in Sweden, Eriksson waited as, around the globe, amateur solvers left their apartments to investigate. And, one by one reported what they'd found: a poster, attached to a lamp post, bearing the cicada image and a QR code." The Internet Mystery That Has the World Baffled, by Chris Bell.
jc-12.19.13

Chicago's own Adam McIver launched his first "micro" board game Coin Age yesterday via Kickstarter. I see some pretty serious lunch-time games against BB in my future...
mcj-12.10.13

"1960 turned out to be an important year for the game. Dujardin released a nouveau edition featuring cards professionally updated by the French graphic designer Joseph Le Callennec. His iconic design would become the benchmark that later designs were measured against." Jim Hughes' illustrated post on the classic card game, Mille Bornes.
jc-11.20.13

"Realizing that the bombs would kill all of the people in the targeted city, I did not want to put the player in the position of being a genocidal maniac." Making Missile Command, by Alex Rubens.
jc-08.16.13

"In the late 1870s, baseball was at risk of dying out before it even got started, strangled by a teetotaling, law-abiding, church-going new league. Then a German saloonkeeper in St. Louis got involved." A great piece by Tobias Seamon for TMN, How Der Boss President Changed Baseball.
jc-07.30.13

"After the assassination of Jabba the Hutt (by the coward Leia Organa), the Gamorrean guard found himself guarding no one for the first time since training academy on Gamorr. Lonely and without purpose, he manages to stow away on a transport ship bound for Theed, the capital city of Naboo." Jabba's Palace: Where Are They Now?dw-05.24.13

Related to 16" softball, Royko At The Goat, a film by Scott Jacobs and Lilly Ollinger. Fab.
jc-05.15.13

Softball season starts next week, in honor of that, here's the magnificent Eddie Feigner in a newsreel from 1959, The King and His Court. I was lucky enough to see them way back when, at Thillens Stadium.
jc-05.15.13

Fascinating interview with lead designer Stone Librande about the creation of the latest Sim City game, which looks incredible and is the focus of a major obsession in my house as we wait impatiently for the Mac version to be released.
jc-05.09.13

Related to the last, Patricia Marx wrote about Scav in the NYer last year, The Hunter Games.
jc-05.09.13

Annual (and usually wrong) Derby Picks: First my Pop, "Itsmyluckyday, if he goes at anywhere near this morning's 15-1, it's the steal of the year." My pick is Verrazano, I had a bet on him while in Vegas
when he crushed the field in the Tampa Bay Derby. Make mine an exacta box with Revolutionary.
jc-05.03.13

Pretty much everything you'd ever want to know about the greatest trophy in sports, visualized.
jc-05.01.13

Ah baseball. Yesterday was the anniversary of Cub's manager Lee Elia's immortal press conference. It's a must listen, but not safe for work, or kids for that matter.
jc-04.30.13

A game mechanism without the game. "An addictive but essentially aimless experience. The piece is a triptych of playable acrylic paintings, controlled by the viewer using a NES controller. Via Waxy.
jc-04.22.13

Oh, NFL kickers! 2012 was the year we all fell in love with the Vikings' Chris Kluwe, will 2013 belong to the Lions' new signing Havard Rugland?
bb-04.12.13

Prior to 1849, there was no such thing as a "normal chess set." At least not like we think of it today. Over the centuries that chess had been played, innumerable varieties of sets of pieces were created, with regional differences in designation and appearance.
ab-04.11.13

When the subject of the email is "Hey Jim, our location based augmented reality role playing zombie apocalypse game was just featured on Wired!" You really need to take a peek. Nice work Doejo.
jc-03.14.13

"After the miracle of the fish served between the loaves and the soda water into cola, lo, the Hamburglar said unto the Burger King, here is the messiah, the people worship him as king, the Big Mac, above even you. Asked if he knew him Grimace shook his head no. Asked again, and still Grimace denied it. Then a chicken McNugget crowed three times. And Ronald was made to carry his burial arches through the streets the whip lashes ran red and white with pain. His passion so brutal that Dairy Queen had to turn away." Confusing monuments to future humans.
dw-02.27.13

Noted without comment, Sunny Side is an app that tells passengers which side of the car to sit on to avoid the sun.
dw-02.27.13

"In January of 1978, just a few months after the world experienced the first chapter in the Star Wars franchise on the big screen, a factory in Cincinnati, Ohio was hard at work producing the first line of Star Wars action figures." Via TMN.
jc-02.25.13

Dada Poetry Project for Today: Compose a message made up only of Emoji. Ask Siri to read it. Repeat as necessary using different messages and voices. Have fun.
jc-02.21.13

"Compatible with all human neurosensory systems and powered by finger oil, child mucus and a love for learning, the Factory Blocks do not require batteries, software updates or hand wringing over obsolescence."
dw-01.22.13

Matthew Baldwin's review of The 2012 Good Gift Games, "showcasing those board and card games from the last year or so that are easy to learn and teach, fun and engrossing to play, and that can be completed in 90 minutes or less." Great.
jc-12.04.12

"In place of Monopoly's 'Go!' was a box marked 'Labor Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages.' The Landlord Game's chief entertainment was the same as in Monopoly." Monopoly Is Theft by Christopher Ketcham.
jc-10.24.12

In the left hand corner we have a cat with a poptart body who has a serious appetite for shells. In the right we have a shell with shoes who lives on a bed made of bread. Who will win today's PwnVFaiL?
dw-06.15.12

Take That Don Draper!Madvertising is by Dick De Bartolo and illustrated by Bob Clarke points out the lunacy of modern (as in 1972) advertising, although not much has changed since then. Fun.
jc-05.04.12

Brick Fetish is Jim Hughes' "obsessive, irrational devotion to a brick-shaped child's building block" and an excellent resource on Lego history via an annotated timeline. Also, Jim runs one of our very favorite sites, Codex 99, where he has just posted on amusement park maps and Legoland.
jc-03.23.12

"In this educational board game, players migrate across the Serengeti as wildebeests, gazelles, impalas or zebras. Varied terrains are represented by patterned borders. Players must plot their course wisely to collect food, water and survival instinct tokens, and maintain herd size. The illustrations are inspired by African patterns and antique maps." Via design work life.
dw-03.21.12

The English Games Box is a set of materials; boards, cards, dice, etc., from which a variety of games can be created for fun and education. The boards are especially lovely. From the graduate thesis of Anne-Catherine Mould. Developed at the University of Wismar in 2011.
jc-02.09.12

"There's no guesswork involved in slutty nurse or slutty Captain Picard. We've seen these all before. Wouldn't it be more fun, and funny for yourself, to be the most obscure characters you can, thus making it as difficult as possible for people to guess?" Yes, that's why I'm being the Silent Singer.
dw-10.28.11

"...if anyone were going to design a physical/digital toy that felt 'just right,' it was going to be Lego. Its new set, Life of George, combines an iPhone app with classic plastic bricks into an 'augmented reality' experience that actually feels playful." —John Pavlus.
jc-10.17.11

You will waste at least 20 minutes of your day playing Kern Type.
jse-10.11.11

On November 25, a bandanna-wearing dude will attempt to determine "if playing Tetris non-stop for 24 hours will kill a man."
jse-10.05.11

"Nearly all types of games are represented in the Omegathon, though roleplaying games are excluded. But that's to be expected. After all, how many people want to sit around and watch other people play Dungeons & Dragons? At the Penny Arcade Expo, the answer is: 3,040." Matthew Baldwin's PAX Primer for TMN.
jc-09.22.11

Related to the last. Patrick Molnar is a designer from Mainz, Germany who has collected and catalogued gaming systems from Europe, the US and Japan for the last ten years. The result is this beautiful Consollection, game systems carefully photographed and annotated. Since around 1972 we've plugged a lot of stuff into our televisions and seeing them all at once show how much things have changed and maybe more importantly how much they haven't.
jc-08.02.11

Street Cleaning Simulator reminds me a lot of Hot Wheels for the Commodore 64, wherein there were "no specific objectives in the game." Regardless, lots of bewildering hours were spent with it.
sd-07.14.11

Exciting. Can't wait to play this one. "In Street Cleaning Simulator you are the proud owner/operator of a small firm specialising in keeping the town's roads free from all the leaves and dirt that accumulate over time." Via Things.
jc-07.14.11

Spencer and I thought we were pretty cool building the Lego Maersk Train and Farnsworth House, until we saw this.
jc-04.23.11

"There's nothing like a couple thousand years of repetition and an iconic painting to get a story lodged inside the heads of the creators of pop culture." Suddenly Last Supper, a huge mess of parody images. Via This Isn't Happiness.
jc-04.21.11

"Register for a chance to win an opportunity to purchase two tickets to the 2011 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic." Wow, what a great contest! Thanks NHL! I guess I'll have to register with United to win the opportunity to pay for my flight, too.
bb-10.01.10

The results of combining a camera and some toys is, um, unexpected. TheOneCam.
jc-09.21.10

"Now, begin your grand adventure with Mark, Lisa, Johnny, Denny and the rest! It will change you forever!" Relive your favorite parts of the film in glorious 8-bit with The Room: The Game. A full walkthrough, here.
sd-09.09.10

"I suspect the ability to notice that things might be just a little off square, off centre, or not quite straight, varies greatly." Developed for woodworkers but fun for everyone. How good are your eyeballing skills? Via Bobby Solomon.
jc-05.18.10

It appears to be a vintage Scrabble clone of some sort but it's infinitely cooler looking, especially the "devil" tiles, Diamino, found by the always observant Agence Eureka. Update thanks to AbsurdIntellect, here's how the game is played.
jc-04.13.10

Records are made to be broken. And now, after 27 years, the high score for Asteroidshas fallen. Get your quarters ready. Via Kottke.
ncz-04.12.10

Sure, everyone now has their iPad. I'm waiting to get my hands on the iCade. Via The Donut Project.
ncz-04.05.10

The Superplexus is a complex network of chicanes, multi-planar hairpin turns, spirals, and staircases – even a vortex. Hand made from 3- and 6-ply Finnish birch that form the track, over 400 hours are involved in its construction.
dw-02.16.10

Tangentially related to the last and on tap for tonight. A household staple, Oh Hell, a great group card game. There are many variations but, it goes without saying that only our house rules are the true and correct and exceedingly awesome ones. It aint right if you're not scoring by the square.
jc-12.11.09

"Please dismantling the Radio. your have only screwdriver. The tool you can use is the screwdriver. Japanese skill is NO need to slove this puzzle. Good luck." Via a Mefi thread where you can also find clues if you're the sort of person who needs other people to do your work for you.
jc-11.05.09

"Upon this stump, however incredible it may seem, on the 4th of July, thirty-two persons were engaged in dancing four sets of cotillions at one time, without suffering any inconvenience whatever; and besides these, there were musicians and lookers-on."
dw-10.06.09

Wha? My selection for winner of the strangest thing yet made for the iPhone: the Daniel Johnson video game Hi How Are You. More info here.
sd-09.30.09

"The iconic figures of the videogame world weren't just invented the way they'd have us believe." How things like Mario's mushrooms are manufactured (scroll right). Made of Myth. Link of the month! Via The Minister.
jc-08.27.09

My wife and I both bought these string dolls in separate states on the same weekend, which says to me that their moment in the zeitgeist is upon us. The crowd of little kids around me said the same thing.
aro-08.07.09

"I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes." Meet Alice and Kev. Via Wonderland.
dw-06.17.09

Following JC's last: more on Morskoi Boi and some great info on and photos of the U.S. equivalents: Sega's Periscope from 1968 and Midway's outright copies, Sea Raider from 1969 and Sea Devil from 1970, all of which seem to have been the basis for the Russian game.
sd-06.04.09

Morskoi Boi, a Soviet era submarine battle arcade game ported to Flash. Maybe the best thing ever. More about it from The Utne Reader here. Yowza.
jc-06.04.09

"The main reason why the Sony brand wasn't really used in the early marketing of PlayStation was not necessarily out of choice, but it was because Sony's old guard was scared that it was going to destroy this wonderful, venerable, 50-year old brand." The making of PlayStation.
jc-04.27.09

Darn, MS took mine. Can we share? If I had to pick another TV show it'd be this, nice ending. But if I could pick any song it'd have to be something fun and upbeat by my Lady.
dw-04.16.09

"After a few moments of melee the monster was dead, only to be replaced by another. 'OK,' Kevin said, paging though his dog-eared Fiend Folio, 'now you are fighting a hobgoblin.'" A great piece by Matthew Baldwin for TMN, Deified and Demagogued.
jc-04.13.09

"...starts players off in Springfield, mired in debt, with impeachment 30 days away. They must amass cash by buying and selling items such as Senate seats before they're booted from office." An new app for the iPhone, Pay2Play. Awesome.
ms-02.23.09

Before The Sims there was Jones in the Fastlane, the video game about real life, which has been faithfully recreated here for playing online. Consider yourself warned about how addictive it is.
sd-02.23.09

We know from experience that when Josh Williams and the crew from Alamofire (nee Firewheel) make a crazy new thing, you should be sure to check it out. Case in point, their new location-based iPhone game Gowalla.
jc-02.18.09

Remember a while back when the the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs received a curious letter in code and asked people to help them decipher it? It seems they now have a partial answer and judging by the 680 comments there a lot of geeks still hard at work.
jc-02.17.09

Robbie Cooper's Immersion, a look at people's faces as they play video games.
sd-11.25.08

"Ah, nothing evokes the festive holiday season like tearing through a horde of zombies with your yuletide chainsaw." From the 2008 edition of the always excellent Good Gift Games by Matthew Baldwin.
jc-11.25.08

"A little over a year ago, the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs received a curious letter in code. It has been sitting in our files all that time and we haven't had much of a chance to look into breaking the code, nor are we particularly expert at this! If you have a cryptological bent, perhaps you'd take a crack at this code." Thanks Jennifer.
jc-07.16.08

"You can use your own ride if you don't want to rent a car. Although this is the Rental Car Rally, we fully understand that some of you may be true ballers and have a nice whip you want to use to humiliate your competitors." Via Mefi.
jc-07.08.08

Listened to this weekend: a story on NPR's Weekend Americaabout MIT's Mystery Hunt and Field Tester Francis Heaney's decade-long involvement with it. And to prove that we really get around, it should be noted that Weekend America is regularly hosted by another Field Tester, John Moe.
sd-07.07.08

Decipher, Pentagram's holiday cryptograms are now online, only five months after the fact. Here's what they looked like in the mail.
jc-05.07.08

An annual tradition, my Pop's Derby prognostication, "If Big Brown can bolt from the 20 post across that mad field--and I think he can--he won't be caught." For the first time ever we both agree. As evidence I present Big Brown's entire career. Debut at Saratoga, Gulfstream and The Florida Derby. Three for three by a combined 29 lengths, yowza.
jc-05.02.08

"I did a bunch of experiments and found that putting them in a dryer for three minutes works pretty well... After that, they're pretty much how they appear in nature." The joys of speedcabling.
jc-02.13.08

Peter Fowler's Monsterism is "a psychedelic parallel universe which is on planet Earth but undiscovered because of a complex weather system." More from Fowler in this Computer Arts interview and lots of fun stuff in the shop too.
jc-10.30.07

Here in Boulder in the name of "creative nudity", they're gearing up for the Naked Pumpkin Run. NSFW.
se-10.30.07

"I am not liable for any damages incurred through the use of these instructions. Even though it is very hard to hurt people with this, it may freak them out and get you into a legal mess. Use at your own risk!"
dw-10.11.07

Chicago's Olympic bid committee unveiled VSA Partners' new logo today. If you're seeing our opinion as Olympic-logo experts: The star is a distinctive and underutilized symbol of Chicago, and the stylized, compact background is an improvement over the previous version. We like it a lot, and we're proud to live and work in "Applicant City."
bb-09.19.07

Uh oh. Here's one to keep from the kids: Forbidden Lego. Bit gun oriented, but looks like fun to build.
se-09.17.07

Just as I hit "post," London 2012 site posted a video that puts the logo in nearly exactly the context we'd imagined.
bb-06.04.07

JC and BB, after a couple hours of thought, have decided to officially swear total allegiance to the 2012 Olympic Logo. Our ranks may be small now, but our forthcoming statement will explain how this logo will be universally loved by 2012.
bb-06.04.07

An annual ritual, my Pop's Derby pick. If you paid attention last year you won $14.20 for each $2 you bet. "Let's just go ahead and anoint Barbaro again, except this time his name is Scat Daddy. But it's the same horse, same trainer, same jock (Prado), same regime -- win the Florida Derby then nap for five weeks -- same end result, win the Derby by more than three. Surprising Tiago and favorite Curlin closest."
jc-05.04.07

Found on best of craigslist... "You: unsuspecting lonley sad looking boy on subway. Me: Girl with blue Urn. I spilled my grandmother on you, im sure you remember, If you see this we should do lunch... this time without grandma."
dw-04.11.07

"It was first released as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows in 1990, but in 1992, it replaced Reversi as a pack-in game for Windows 3.1." The History of Minesweeper. Via Waxy.
sd-02.27.07

These photographs by Rosemarie Fiore were shot from video game screens while she played. "By recording each second of an entire game on one frame of film, I captured complex patterns not normally seen by the eye." Via Waxy.
jc-02.08.07

"Full of conflict, contradiction, frustration, anger and the desire to save themselves and their world, a resistance movement emerged. The first of these resistance cells was the Insurgents Wilderness Gruppo." Click though to the vinyls. Epic.
jc-12.28.06

What happens when you give a bunch of Macintosh developers three days to write a holiday themed application for charity? You get A Holiday Cocoa Duel. Vote for your fave. Via Daring Fireball.
jc-12.22.06

"My policy. Paper toy is: Replicable, but Shin makes only 1 model per design. Distributable, but Shin's toys are only for the designer and Shin. Mass-Producable, but all Shin's toys are made by his hands." --Shin Tanaka. Admirable and beautiful. Make you own too..
jc-11.20.06

The Bears are great and all, but neither Chicago paper mentioned that American motorcyclist Nicky Hayden won the 2006 MotoGP championship yesterday, beating favorite Valentino Rossi, who's dominated the sport for the last few years.
bb-10.30.06

You might want to bookmark this for later as there's a lot to it. Well worth some study though is Blast Theory's Day of the Figurines, a pervasive game, meaning one "that takes place in and is interwoven with our everyday life." So very cool.
jc-10.17.06

Can You See Me Now? "Players are dropped at random locations into a virtual map of the Banff Centre. Tracked by satellites, Blast Theory's runners appear online next to your player. The runners use handheld computers showing the positions of online players to guide them in the chase." Via Mefi.
jc-08.14.06

This summer, revisit some good old Deadly Playgrounds of Yesteryear. After a weekend conversation lamenting the disappearance of old metal merry-go-rounds, I'd love to spend some time here.
se-06.19.06

Finkbuilt on Circular Saw Blunders in 3-D. "So, before you hit the woodshop, do youself a favor and strap on the old 3-D gogs and review these images before something really grisly happens."
jc-06.16.06

"Expect conversations in Mad Ape Den to be time-consuming affairs, with long pauses as participants grope for three-letter equivalents for everyday sesquipedalianisms. Via Kottke.
jc-04.06.06

In looking up links for that last post, ran across The Dragon's Lair Project. Incredible amount of information. Even has a lot of info on the first (only?) holographic game, 1991's Time Traveler. Amazing.
sd-04.04.06

Soccer governing body FIFA has ranked the U.S. 7th (tied with Mexico) leading up to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. We'll play Ghana (50th), Italy (12th) and the Czech Republic (2nd) in the first round. I don't know about "7th" but we have a good team and I like our odds. The drag is, if we actually make it out of the first round, chances are we'll be smeared in the next game by Brazil (1st).
bb-01.20.06

"A player may pay $100 immediately upon reaching jail to be placed in Just Visiting, and thus avoid a turn in jail. Good lawyers are expensive." House rules for Monopoly.
jc-01.19.06

"I know that my teammates read this blog religiously (#39 has it read to him), and I don't want to implicate myself further" The Chicago Blackhawks' Todd Simpson on practical jokes.
bb-01.11.06

'70s skateboarder Ollie Gelfand, inventor of the trick known as "The Ollie" has filed suit against several companies using the name "Ollie" for commercial purposes.
bb-01.06.06

Unrealart, "created using data from the game 'Unreal Tournament' ...the bots play custom maps I create. Each map has been pathed so that the bots have a rough idea of where to go in order to create the image I want." Via Select Parks.
jc-12.13.05

"This online database (compiled by 80-plus contributors with seemingly endless time on their hands) is a mind-numbingly comprehensive catalog of the famously faux telephone numbers used in film and television." Found among other things.
jc-10.25.05

People who like this sort of thing will find this exactly the sort of thing they like. 99 Rooms.
jc-08.02.05

Åsk writes, "A Copenhagen ad agency wants a new name ...Because every creative out there has a drawer full of fun ad agency names for their future hot shop shops they figured they'd make a competition out of it." Win great stuff in this Adland contest.
jc-07.28.05

"Saturday night Michi and I finally assembled my Lego Star Destroyer. It took us close to 10 hours (we started around midnight). We let my webcam take a picture every five seconds and made a stop motion video out of the pictures."
jc-06.30.05

The Haka is a traditional Maori war dance performed before every All Black rugby match. On the eve of the first tour test match with the British & Irish Lions, opposition supporters have launched a site where you can create your own Laka - a very British war dance.
mg-06.24.05

Armin writes, "More than we all wanted to know about games and more time than I would want my wife to spend learning about games." Cribbage anyone?
jc-06.23.05

20 Questions. Surprisingly good at guessing what you have in mind. Thanks Robert.
jc-05.17.05

In the English Premiership Football League, teams at the bottom of the league are relegated to a lower division at the end of the season. For the first time in the history of the Premiership, no team had been relegated at the start of play yesterday, the last day of the season. BBC Video Coverage of a great day of sports action.
jw-05.16.05

"HiÎronymus Bosch shows us how we mortal souls, arisen from earthly paradise, are on our way to the atrocious ordeals of hell via our unchaste lives on earth." And now you can collect the action figures!.
jc-02.04.05

OrganicPoetry "is a game for social transformation by bringing people together in a collaborative manner." While it's "based on complex ideas in game theory, conflict resolution, social networking, and control theory, the game is extremely simple" as rules are made up as the game is played.
rch-12.06.04

Orisinal redesigns. Two things to hope to be, beautiful and smart.
jc-12.02.04

Revive your old cassette recorder. Give it a new mission and enter the Recorder Race.
rch-11.29.04

Did you know that there is a serious lack of government funding on the study of the History of Rubber Band Shooting? Neither did I. Welcome to Tim Morgan's Ultimate Guide to Shooting Rubber Bands.
rch-11.29.04

Playground Magazine is devoted to "bringing fresh information from the Hong Kong toy scene directly to the U.S." Part of the editorial team, Strangeco is hosting the back issues and there's lots to appreciate there. Via Netdiver.
jc-11.22.04

Play the game. You're white. To begin the game, move one of your pieces... The curves show potential moves - often several turns in the future - considered by the computer. Orange curves are moves by black; green curves are ones by white.
av-11.10.04

Marshall points is to this ugly but interesting site. "Urban Exploration is the art of exploring places that people normally donít, or arenít supposed to go. There are several distinct branches of Urban Exploration; exploring abandoned buildings, exploring drains, exploring college tunnels, ëinfiltratingí hotels and other buildings still used, exploring bridges, climbing buildings and more."
jc-09.14.04

This is why i'll stick to 1:64 scale modeling. The horror! Brilliant while it lasted, though.
bb-09.09.04

A magnificent obsession. The most complete archive of photos of the Disney World 20K ride anywhere. "it kick-started a lifelong infatuation with the undersea world and more specifically, giant squids attacking things."
jc-09.08.04

Blue Chamber. Reminds me of those long nights in my room playing 7th Guest.
av-09.03.04

We probably should get a Robosapien for the studio, assuming we can teach him to pack Jewelboxing orders that is.
jc-08.04.04

Looking for something else completely, I stumbled on this, "To obtain good, clear hand-shadows, there should be a single, strong, bright light, and the hands should be so held that they cast a sharply defined shadow on a white or a very light-colored wall." As with any subject, you can always find an expert or two.
jc-08.03.04

Don't blame us if this goes horribly wrong on the Fourth of July and don't show this link to any boy between the ages of 10-15. Thanks Jimmy.
jc-06.30.04

"The key to a good game, based on many year's experience with this format, is preparation and consistancy. Understand the proper or expected "political line" of the period and try to understand what important aspects of the line may have changed or be changing." I wish I had the option to sign up for this class.
jc-06.15.04

"From the exuberant Art Deco disintegrator pistols of the 1930s, to the streamlined and futuristic tin litho sparkers of the 50s and the darkly post-apocalyptic nitro blasters of today." Toy Ray Guns.
jc-06.08.04

"Maschinen Krieger, formerly known as SF3D, is the brainchild of Kow Yokoyama, a prominent and influential Graphic Designer in Japan. First appearing in the early to mid eighties in the pages of Hobby Japan Magazine, SF3D became legend. The model kits produced by Nitto were the first truly multimedia model kits, and to this day are still the best injection-plastic Sci-Fi kits manufactured." From Jason Eaton who knows more than a little abut this sort of thing. Via k10k.
jc-05.11.04

Chillbot's Battle of the Brands is down to the Sweet Sixteen and my office pool is still alive with a six-seed, "Punchy" from Hawaiian Punch, going all the way. Wait a minute. It's not still March is it?
jc-05.07.04

"We don't really have much of a history. We could put one of those cheesy blurbs about how we're dedicated to making your life better, but we're sure you've heard it all before." Sure, and then you go and build this super sweet looking online Stratego game.
jc-05.05.04

Took the kids to Uncle Fun yesterday and came home with a motherlode of stuff including some wind-up dinosaurs, Speed Racer magnets and a Wiffle Ball in old-school packaging. I'm proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy The Albino Bowler action figure.
jc-05.03.04

StrangeCo, Purveyors of the Peculiar "...liberates mass-produced products from the ordinary confines of the toy box. We love toys, and we love art. Canít they just get along? Sure can!" Amen to that.
jc-02.25.04

From the folks that brought you these, a game to pass a Friday afternoon. Via Metafilterms-02.06.04

We rec'd our excellent Stalker Sticker from Sharpeworld but since you can't see the front bumper on any of our cars because of the snow, we put it on the wall of the CP studio washroom and BB took a snap of it.
jc-01.23.04

"I'm Ken Blackburn, and this web site is here to share what I know about paper airplanes."
jc-01.16.04

"We were initially influenced by the Hong Kong vinyl movement and the Kubrick mini figure craze. We loved the idea of artists transcribing their work into three-dimensional figures and wanted to bring a piece of Asian toy culture to Canada." Magic Pony. Via All Maple.
jc-01.06.04

"Friends, are you tired of the free-wheeling, undisciplined chaos of the non-corporate world around you? The power of middle-management is as close as your printer." Instant Bureaucracy. Via Blurbism.
jc-01.05.04

"This is a deconstructed Nintendo emulator that shows how sprites and sprite memory are handled while a game is being played. The intent is to show insight for how software and hardware work, given the relatively simple example of a minimal architecture from an old game console system." Brilliant presentation, captivating for geeks and non-geeks too. Via Kottke.
jc-12.16.03

Shanghai Mahjong. Available for free. On the web. Online. What else is there to do in the long winter evenings, apart from the naughty things of course? Enjoy; the graphics are wonderful. Via Kosmonautentraum.
rz-11.10.03

Gambits from the Rock Paper Scissors Society, including my personal favorite, The Avalanche, "A subtle, yet aggressive gambit. Was the first of the Triple Gambits developed in the early 1890s (the others being The Bureaucrat and Toolbox)."
jc-07.24.03

Keep your hand on the left hand wall at all times. Maze Maker.jc-07.23.03

Build a cool van. All you need is Acrobat, a printer, an exacto knife and some glue. Owen Nerfect says "It takes a keen mind and skillful hands to put it all together, but it is worth it in the end."
jc-06.10.03

Have you got what it takes to be James Bond 007? Take the Secret Service Test to find out.
rf-06.09.03

I'm not sure exactly what is going on here but I'm pretty sure it has to do with cleavage and test-tubes or something. It's all very campy and dramatic. Check the story titles, like "Death is a Little Man," and "Satan's Pygmy Horde," and the shocking-sounding, "The Terrible People." Note: Andrew of GMT+9 explains that "some good 'ol Japanese Science Fiction fan fun is a goin' on here. Ice Classic is a collection of old SF and horror pulp magazines with covers that have to do with ice. Cool. It's part of his Ice Museum... 'for fans of girls frozen in blocks of ice.'"
jc-06.03.03

"The Retail Alphabet Game is one part puzzle, one part self assessment, and a pinch of postmodern art. When you select one of the editions to the left to play the Game, you will be presented with 26 alphabet letterforms, extracted from product and corporate logos within the United States. Your job is to figure out the source of each." Via Blurbism.jc-04.17.03

Dan Burton's Flight Club, an online glider simulator built in Java. Super slick and dangerous for compulsive types. Hint: "The spacebar is niether a toggle nor something you hold down. Just hit it when you think you are in a thermal. If you are in a thermal the glider will start to circle. It will continue climbing until you press z or x; or until the cloud you are under decays. If you are not in lift the glider will shake its head and then resume normal flight."
jc-04.08.03

1893 is a meticulously researched text adventure set at the Chicago World's Fair, transporting you back 100 years in history and 20 years in gaming. (Read a review.) Thanks Daniel.
kg-03.27.03

While working on pulling a bunch of disparate information together for a client site, and appreciating how easy it has become, it occurs to me that while this is very funny, it doesn't seem so far-fetched. From Perry Hoberman's Accept Series.jc-03.17.03

"Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe roved the street of San Francisco in the early Sixties looking to 'terrorize' people in the interest of humor. Their surreal encounters were captured on tape, then rebroadcast on thier nightly radio show. 'On the Loose.'" Mal is also our pal Jen Sharpe's father and Jen has created an excellent site cataloging and archiving their work.
jc-02.03.03

In local Chicago news, our friends at 37signals have redesigned their excellent Signal vs. Noise feature and Charles Foreman of SetPixel has contributed to the holiday mayhem with Snowglobe Simon, an addictive game with a fabulous soundtrack.
jc-12.13.02

Can't get enough Ellen Feiss? try ellenfeiss.net. A must for all fans of the questionably sober Macintosh spokesmodel.
bb-10.03.02

Brain Taylor of Rustboy writes, The Checkershadow Illusion is the kind of thing that fascinated me when I was a kid, and still does for that matter."
jc-09.27.02

Pearls before Swine reminds me of those evil math problems from back in the computer science days. If you get fed up, try playing Insaniquarium instead. It's twice the fun and requires half the brainwork.
jtb-09.26.02

Flash Matchstick Puzzles. I had a great book of these when I was a kid. I also remember there were lots of matches around the house even though my parents didn't smoke, nor ever lit candles. What was up with that?
kg-09.25.02

During my quest to find something mindless to do on business trips, I stumbled across Nintendo's e-reader. It allows you to play classic NES games on your Gameboy Advance. Now I can play Excitebike on the commuter rail.
jtb-09.19.02

I'm not doing any work today. Know why? Because I don't feel like it. Instead, I'm playing The Chicken Game. And when I'm done with the chickens, I'm moving on to Headkicker II.
jtb-09.13.02

Another beautiful game from Orisinal. Get on your bike and fly a kite while playing Windy Days. Simple and simply perfect. Thanks EMF.
jc-09.12.02

Still have some extra room in your cubicle? Want more toys? Check out monsterism.net - home to the artwork, watches and interchangeable action figures designed by Pete Fowler (better known for his work with Super Furry Animals). I'm no expert at currency conversion, but these things look really expensive. Via CatcHDubs.
jtb-09.03.02

Stikfas, "The highly articulated posable action figure." Hasbro just started mass producing them for the U.S. Perfect for reenacting your favorite John Woo scenes. Pick one up and watch your productivity level plunge.
jtb-09.03.02

Assemble your own crime fighter and send them off to protect the world from n'er-do-wells at the Hero Machine.jc-06.13.02

if you already know how to play Risk you don't need to read the rules. Snapcount is a clickety-fun game of world domination promoting The Sum of All Fears. Hint: As in the board game, North America is easily defended and a good place to start your campaign.
jc-06.06.02

So a guy fires off an email telling his boss he quits. He then gets a call from the same boss telling him he's doing a great job and promoting him. Can he get to the email before his boss sees it? Play Pink Slip-Up and find out. From Dave and company at Streams here in Chicago.
jc-05.07.02

Real signs, packaging, apparel, etc. in Japan adorned with "English" words and phrases. Apparently not intended to be read by English-speaking people and therefore hilarious when they are.
mls-05.03.02

Planetarium. A puzzle-story in weekly installments. 'A girl with complete foresight but no recollection of the past receives a love-letter from beyond the end of her future. Guided by her friend the mathemagician, she begins a journey through the events which his calculations have predicted and her intuition has foreseen, towards the source of the curious letter. '
sg-04.25.02

The Virtual Autopsy. From Leicester University. Good for Quincy wannabes; your task is to determine the cause of death for deceased patients, given their case histories.
sg-04.21.02

Golf pros are preparing for next week's Masters, and so can everyone who plans to waste time at their desks following the early rounds.
kg-04.03.02

Circlemakers.org, 'home of England's crop circle makers' - photographs, perpetrators' and witnesses' accounts and the history of England's most unusual land art. Imagine the sheer amount of planning and effort involved in making this.sg-04.03.02

A floating department store? A cow-breeding finance minister? Bribes to be legalised? The BBC rounds up this year's April Fool stories in the business pages.
sg-04.02.02

Do not go to this site if you have things that need to get done in the next hour or so. Otherwise, throw a daisy in the dashboard vase and have at it. From wireframe in South Africa.
jc-03.27.02

Brick Builder, the ultimate online Lego app. Build something cool, take a screen-shot and send it in and we'll feature it on the front page.
jc-03.26.02

In case you missed this a couple of years ago: I don't know whether it's the biggest interactive art installation on record, but it's certainly the geekiestan entire building turned into an enormous game of Tetris.
ks-03.08.02

Officially licensed toys and action figures are well and good, but welcome to the world of really bad knock-offs. It takes a little digging to find some of the really funny ones. A few to get you started: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Here's another small gallery with some pretty good ones, and an extensive Star Wars collection. (Another great site, The Island of Bootleg Toys, seems to be AWOL at the moment, hopefully not for good.)
ks-03.05.02

"I've found a great little fishing nook just around the corner. let's go." Catch o' the Day.jc-02.06.02

A little reading for the weekend, The History of Video Games. Of course you already knew that "the original Asteroids was merely an updated version of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space, which was really a jazzed-up copy of Steve Russell's Spacewar." Via xplane.jc-02.01.02

Before you get into the next office war, you might want to bone up on the "Double-fisted six-shot pre-ban high cap band assault" and other rubber band firing techniques. With informative pictures.
kg-11.02.01

Need a science project for school or fun? Here is your resource for making everything from a pinhole camera to a foxhole radio (you'll need a rusty razor blade and a cardboard toilet paper tube).
kg-10.18.01

Not usually a big fan of first-person shooters, but this flash game is slick.
jc-10.17.01

After attending a course by Edward Tufte, I was full of ideas about information design and enjoyed his thoughts on everything from interface design to the presentation of scientific data. He made a great case for clean, simple web navigation while touting the superior resolution of the printed page as a display surface. He ended, as promised, with an example of what might have happened if the Gettysburg Address had been a PowerPoint presentation. If you haven't read his three books on information design, you're in for a treat.
se-10.02.01

AIR (The Annals of Improbable Research) attempted to mail a variety of odd objects: from a helium balloon to a hammer to a deer tibia -- all improperly wrapped, if wrapped at all. See the results.
kg-12.19.00

The Alcoa Book of Decorations. "This booklet was published in 1959, obviously in response to the 'Aluminum the Wonder Metal' craze, to show the masses that in addition to being useful in pioneering lightweight industrial construction, one could waste literally miles of the stuff in making crappy craft monstrosities and calling them 'decoration'."
kg-12.12.00

I'm not smart enough to know what this means but it's good fun.
kg-11.25.00

"My name is Sabrina. I draw everything I eat on my Palm Pilot." I suppose this qualifies as some sort of eating disorder but I love pocketpig.com.
kg-11.13.00

So you're playing your favorite board game -- let's say Password, or Masterpiece, or Rack-O -- and a fight breaks out over an obscure rule, which you can't resolve because you lost the cover of the box ten years ago when there was all that water damage in your basement. Get on over to the Game Cabinet.
kg-11.06.00